Starting from the success of Plants vs. Zombies

Plants vs. botnets have achieved great success. In many offices, it has become a trend of catching up with parking and planting vegetables. A good gaming experience has produced a great reputation effect, which is constantly recommended by people. As a professional game planning, it is necessary to think more.

Many people are not paying attention to the game developer PopCap when playing "Plants vs. Zombies. Just as many people play Wii in the store, but do not know Nintendo. Mild gamers are not so concerned about brands. For them, products are more important than anything else, so they don't have to worry about whether the game server that can play with a hand-held player is Wii or VII.
However, "Plants vs. Zombies" is not an accidental product. PopCap has been playing casual games for many years and has made many very good games: for example, Gemma, Zuma, Mao, etc. The level of casual games they make is very high, like blizzard in the casual game industry. There are not many products and there are various excellent products.

All successful casual games have two words: "simple" and "fun ".
Simple means that the game rules are simple, the content is easy to understand, and the operation is simple, that is, you do not need to move too much brains or crud operations to play. Fun requires the game to have fun, enjoy a good gaming experience, and enjoy the body and mind.

To put it bluntly, casual games are "fun without having to make too many brains"
This is different from those that focus on games. Those games require "agile operations", "Comprehensive and meticulous thinking", "Long-Term Exercise", and "careful research ".
Monster Hunter is a good game, but he will always be the core.
Dota is also a good game, but it is always just the core direction. Even though it is simpler than war3, it only needs to operate on one unit, however, he is still a core game that requires "careful research" and "agile operations.

When the game was successful a few years ago, we thought it was Nintendo's success.
However, when Nintendo launched the Wii, which tends to be a mild player, we were waiting for the Wii to look at the crowd and watch jokes.
We did not expect that the sales volume of Wii was much higher than the sales volume of 360 and PS3.
The Wii victory is a victory for a mild player, or a victory for a "biased towards a mild player design.

In the last two years, friends who shop for vegetables have achieved great success. This kind of game is simple to the extreme in terms of game planning, and even a lot of game planning is difficult to play. However, these games are gaining popularity all over the world. They use very simple game interfaces and simple game rules to make a lot of people feel happy.
Do we have to make others feel happy?

Comparison
I drew an axis to compare the pictures and rules of each game horizontally. The X axis is the complexity of game rules, and the Y axis is the display performance of game images.

Each game can find a place on this axis
For example, the pictures and rules of buying and selling friends and planting vegetables are very simple. wiisports pictures are average and the rules are simple. The World of Warcraft pictures are good and the rules are complicated. The rules of EQ are more complex than those of World of Warcraft.
For example, the aion picture is very good, but the rules are not complicated. As for the cod4 "Gun Rover" games, the picture is very good, but the rules are very simple.
All the games listed are successful games.

A fact that is easy to find is that, in a broad sense, a game's success is not directly related to the picture or the rules.

Good games
Do not scold spam when you see a game screen, or scold spam when you think the game is simple.
Look at the table above and you will know that your feeling is not important at all. Even if the picture is as simple as Legend 2, it is successful. even if the game is simple, it can be successful. even if the pictures and rules are simple, planting vegetables can also be successful. of course, the image is beautiful to aion and can be successful.
If your game rules are complicated to the extent of card games, they can also be successful.
The success of a game is not determined by subjective perception of the screen and system.

So what are the good game standards?

First, we can determine whether the game is good or not determined by experts and animals.
According to the traditional 2/8 theory, 100 of 80% games are unsuccessful, 20% of games can be recognized by the market, and 4% of games can become popular, only one game can be an epic.
Of course, we do not want the game we develop or act on as the 80% game, but we want to become the 20% game, or the 4% game, or an epic game.

References
We can learn from the film industry. In many aspects, games and movies are very similar.
The success or failure of a movie is linked to the box office and the ROI.
A good movie must have a good "industry score". If you want to become a hot movie, you must earn at least 9 or higher scores. If your movie has only 5-6 scores, in most cases, only half-dead movies can be shown in a few cinemas, let alone success.
Then, you need to make the first movie viewer have a good experience and make them happy to recommend the movie they just watched. If a movie is so popular a few days after its release, most of it will be done.
Finally, you need to have more cinema lines play your movies. The main barrier for success in Europe and America is here.
We all want our movies to become the Titanic, and we don't want them to be "bad movies". Of course, we don't want our films to sound bad.

The success of a game is similar to that of a good industry evaluation, a good start, and a powerful platform.
How can you make your game have these three points?

Limited capability. Just list some keywords.
Market segments, user needs, mainstream users, competitors, social culture, subject types, popularity and popularity
Cost and benefits at the development layer, risks of innovation, progress control, communication, programs, art, and planning
Execution layer users, platforms and channels, and services

Conclusion
It's just a small part of a successful game. Most of the time, successful games are not determined by pictures and themes.
Of course, many people say that playing games in China is the most important and Inaccurate Market. The marketing department is strong in the industry, but there are many examples of gaming failures.
A game plan should look at the problem comprehensively and without prejudice.
Think more, it will make us closer to a good game.
A player's happiness is the only criterion for determining a game's success.

Remind yourself only in this article.

Cdhe
2009-8-25

From: http://www.cdhe.cc/plant/